Compulsory Education and the Benefits of Schooling
American Economic Review
vol. 104,
no. 6, June 2014
(pp. 1777-92)
Abstract
Causal estimates of the benefits of increased schooling using U.S. state schooling laws as instruments typically rely on specifications which assume common trends across states in the factors affecting different birth cohorts. Differential changes across states during this period, such as relative school quality improvements, suggest that this assumption may fail to hold. Across a number of outcomes including wages, unemployment, and divorce, we find that statistically significant causal estimates become insignificant and, in many instances, wrong-signed when allowing year of birth effects to vary across regions.Citation
Stephens, Melvin Jr., and Dou-Yan Yang. 2014. "Compulsory Education and the Benefits of Schooling." American Economic Review, 104 (6): 1777-92. DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.6.1777Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- I21 Analysis of Education
- I28 Education: Government Policy
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- N31 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
- N32 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: 1913-